Creative Communities Program Lead

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Creative Communities Program Lead

Calgary Queer Arts Society

Position Type: 18-Month Contract (with intent to renew, pending available funding).
Hours: This is an external-facing, project-based role. Hours will shift to align with programming, community and personal needs, while offering flexibility and ample time off.
Start Date: March 1, 2025 (or sooner)
Salary & Benefits: $60 – $65,000/yr, flexible work options plus benefits
Application deadline: February 5, 2025

About Us

Queer and creative! Calgary Queer Arts Society (CQAS) is dedicated to celebrating and amplifying 2SLGBTQIA+ voices through arts, culture, and community connection. We envision a world where Queer art is celebrated as part of our shared humanity. We work toward that vision by supporting and amplifying Queer artists, makers, and storytellers; as well as fostering opportunities for community connections, joy and learning through arts and culture.

We primarily do this work through community-based programming, as well as our signature and collaborative events throughout the year, including Fairy Tales Queer Art & Film Festival (June 12 – 15, 2025) and The Coming Out Monologues & Art Market (October 10 – 12, 2025).

About You

You are a compassionate leader and a creative thinker, deeply connected to the power of arts and culture to transform lives. Your commitment to inclusion and equity is reflected in how you build relationships, foster collaboration, and amplify underrepresented voices. You excel at balancing strategic vision with hands-on delivery, ensuring programs are both impactful and sustainable.

Your lived experiences and professional background have equipped you with a strong understanding of the unique challenges faced by 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. You’re skilled at leading with joy and empathy, creating welcoming spaces that encourage authentic self-expression and mutual learning across generations and identities.

If you’re someone who thrives in a dynamic, community-focused environment and is driven to reduce isolation and build resilience through creativity, we’d love to hear from you.

About the Role

Thanks to an investment from The Calgary Foundation, Calgary Queer Arts is seeking an empathetic and visionary creative communities program lead to work alongside our executive director on intersectional and intergenerational program design, delivery and evaluation. This role will be instrumental in organizational learning and applied leadership with the goals of reducing social isolation, enhancing creative engagement, and fostering community connections among 2SLGBTQIA+ community members.

Key Responsibilities

  • Program Design & Delivery: Develop and implement creative arts programs that bring together diverse voices and experiences. Examples include storytelling circles, art workshops, and intergenerational creative exchanges.
  • Community Engagement: Cultivate relationships with 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, allies, and community organizations to ensure programs are responsive, inclusive, and accessible.
  • Volunteer Coordination: Recruit, train, and support a team of volunteers to assist with program facilitation and participant engagement.
  • Program Evaluation: Track metrics, gather feedback, and prepare reports to measure program outcomes and inform future planning.
  • Collaboration: Partner with local organizations to amplify impact and share resources.
  • Advocacy & Representation: Represent CQAS at events and in partnerships, championing intersectional and intergenerational values in all activities.

Qualifications

  • Experience: Minimum 3 years in program development, arts and culture programming, or community service roles, ideally within 2SLGBTQIA+ contexts.
  • Education: Post-secondary education in a related field (e.g., arts management, social work, community development) or equivalent experience.
  • Skills: Exceptional emotional intelligence, strong organizational, events and/or project management abilities, and a proven ability to engage diverse groups.
  • Values: Commitment to intersectional, intergenerational, and anti-oppressive practices.
  • Lived Experience: Candidates with intersectional lived experience within 2SLGBTQIA+ communities are strongly encouraged to apply.

What We Offer

  • A supportive, inclusive and flexible work environment.
    • What do we mean by flexible? We mean life and work require flexibility. While some office and events-based work are requirements of this role, there is also opportunity to work from home, and reasonable accommodation for life events, creative pursuits, professional and personal development.
    • What do we mean by supportive and inclusive? We mean we have a generous benefits package, an ED who believes in servant leadership, and commitments to culture that include Anti-Racism, Truth & Reconciliation, enhanced accessibility measures, and an Intergenerational Solidarity statement that help guide us in challenging our own biases with humility and inspired intention toward a future where we all feel a sense of belonging.
  • The opportunity to make a meaningful impact on Calgary’s 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.
  • Professional development and leadership opportunities.

How to Apply

Please submit your resume and cover letter including qualifications and your passion for this role to Administration@CalgaryQueerArtsSociety.com by February 5, 2025.

Calgary Queer Arts is committed fostering a workplace that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve. We welcome applications from members of equity-deserving communities, including Indigenous, Black, and racialized individuals, as well as people with disabilities and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals. We acknowledge that the kind of world we are dreaming into existence requires an ongoing commitment to: examine our own biases, apply anti-racism practices, enhance our accessibility efforts, and work toward right relations through Truth and Reconciliation, learning and action. If you require accomodations during the application process, please contact us at Administration@CalgaryQueerArtsSociety.com

Land Acknowledgement*

Calgary Queer Arts honours and acknowledges Moh’kinsstis, the lands and oral practices of the Blackfoot Confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, and Piikani Nations; the îethka Nakoda Nations: Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Goodstoney; and the Tsuut’ina Nation. We also recognize this territory as home to the Otipemisiwak Métis Government, Districts 5 and 6. Finally, we celebrate all nations, genders and spirits who live, work, and create across Turtle Island.

*While we recognize Treaty 7 commitments, we do so with the caveat that treaty processes were initiated with an intent to colonize, often layered with manipulative intent and therefore tainted by acts of coercive control. For this reason, we do not refer to Moh’kinsstis as Treaty 7 territory, instead shifting our language to a time before the treaties to honour the authority of the Blackfoot people who first inhabited this land with all its life giving, bountiful beauty.

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